I recently picked up a store demo BAT VK-5i at a good price. It replaced my ARC LS9. On first listening I noticed the highs had lost its grainy sound. The highes have become smoother and sweeter. The mid developed weight and depth. The bass goes lower and with more detail.In every way there is an improvement. The instruments appear to take a more true life-like sound and they appear to be larger in size when compared to the LS9.
My other equipment;
KRELL 250a, AMP.
ROTEL RCD-990, CD
LINN AV5140, speakers
CARDES GOLDEN CROSS interlinks and audio cables.
I listen mostly to classics, jazz and some rock. This uni improves on all.
The salesman at the store told me that rock recordings will sound muddy because the recordings have exagerated bass. At first that was the case but this pre amp did such a fine job on the other recordings that I could not part with it . After some experimenting I discovered by raising the speakers to the max on it's spikes, I was able to clear up the muddy sound and further improve the sound of the classic and jazz recording.
I plan on replacing my amp in the near future with either the BAT VK60 (not sure if it can drive my speakers) or the PASS LABS 4 or 5.

A great preamplifier; well built, good looking, and you have to love looking through to see the tubes. Neutral sound and a velvety black background...absolutely noiseless preamp.

Actually sounds like MUSIC instead of a CD.

Cost. Why can't they make these things for $100 yet???

I've always been displeased with the sound of my system, even with major upgrades to the speakers, amp and cabling. Each upgrade was nice and, until the BAT, the cables were what made the most difference. The BAT, however, has totally transformed my system into a real audiophile system that actually sounds like music.

Before the BAT I was using a Lexicon DC-1 as my stereo and HT preamp as well as a DAC. The transport is a Sony DVD-S7000, which is a killer unit for HT. I upgraded cabling to the Illuminati (Illumination) D60, upgraded to silver cabling (RCA) between components, and made some very nifty DIY CAT 5 cables for the speakers. The Lexicon fed a Plinius SA-100 which in turn drove a pair of Joseph Audio RM22si speakers.

Sure, sounds like a pretty nice system on paper; and it did sound nice... but just nice. I still got fatigued after a short while and was getting pretty upset with dumping lots of money into a black hole and not getting great sound. Then along came my friend the BAT preamp.

Wow! Major upgrade in sound! I'm still using the Lexicon as a DAC (and they have always claimed their DAC process was really good -- just never mentioned that their preamp outs were rather poor). At first I ran the outputs from the regular outs (HT front L/R) to the BAT... ok, mediocre upgrade. Then I ran off the recording outs. Wow! again!

Note that this is currently with $16 XLR cables between the BAT and Plinius and a home-rigged set of Kimber PBJ's from the Lexicon to the BAT. I can hear that I'm losing transparency and a lot of sound with the crappy cables (yes, I'm upgrading (again!) soon to better XLR cables) but even with these cables the system rocks the house. It sounds like real music now. THAT is what I've been looking for all this time.

Strangely enough, the biggest upgrade in sound has to be the bass. Midrange is smooth, upper highs are more transparent and cymbals actually CRASH!! now instead of just smear, but the bass rocks the house. Even with the bad cabling and all, my bass drums sound like real drums.

So, enough rambling... I got this unit off of Audiogon for about 1/2 of retail. God bless the Internet. If you are looking for a real upgrade to your system, get this unit. I can't give it enough stars...

Current system:
Sony DVP-S7000 DVD player as transport
Illuminations D60 digital cable
Lexicon DC-1 HT processor
Kimber PBJ (rigged) RCA-to-XLR cables
BAT VK-5i preamp
No-name $16 XLR-XLR balanced microphone cables
Plinius SA-100 amp
ChrisVH DIY Cat5 cables (very nice)
Joseph Audio RM22si speakers
Dynaudio Aries DIY speakers (still breaking in)

Similar Products Used:

Linn Kairn. OK sound, nothing to write about. Sold this and the Mimik a couple of years ago.